Preparing beverages by introducing a capsule containing a food or beverage ingredient, such as ground coffee or instant coffee, in a beverage dispensing machine and injecting water into the capsule is known in the state of the art: the beverage or food ingredient is typically extracted or dissolved into water to form the beverage or the desired final product, which flows out of the capsule through a suitable outlet.
As such, different capsules have been developed in the past, these capsules being at least differentiated by the nature of the capsule body used for storing the food or the beverage ingredient. Whereas most of the capsules are made of a rigid body or semi-rigid body, typically made though injection moulding or thermoforming, flexible types of packs can be made out of foil materials. Flexible packs have generally the advantage to semi-rigid and rigid capsules that less amount of material is used to pack the product leading to overall less production cost, to lower life cycle impact shown in several life-cycle assessments and to advantages on the part of the user, who will need less available space for storing these packs, as they are more compact.
For example, WO 99/05044 describes a flexible beverage-producing sachet comprising a beverage ingredient in a volume formed by bonding two laminates at their edges, having a base seam into which a conduit of rigid plastics is bonded. An inlet nozzle is provided at the top of the resulting sachet for introducing water that is mixed with the beverage or food ingredient inside the inner volume of the sachet, the beverage produced being then evacuated through a beverage outlet arranged at the bottom of the pack, where closing means are provided, such that the closing means are adapted to open under pressure when pressurized water is introduced into the sachet, allowing the beverage to evacuate through the beverage outlet. However, this configuration presents important drawbacks for the consumer: the opening of the closing means is obtained by increase of pressure inside the sachet. Yet this pressure increase is not recommended for the preparation of some beverages because it creates bubbles at the surface of the beverage, for example this would not be desired for the preparation of tea. Besides, there exists the risk for the user that the packages may not rupture at the desired pressure, and that they would finally open up in an uncontrollable explosion. For this reason the apparatus where the sachet is processed needs to comprise means for totally enclosing the sachet in the machine during beverage preparation in order to avoid damages for the consumer.
Another drawback of these known sachets is that the inlet nozzle introduces water in the pack always according to the same vertical top-down orientation in the sachet. Therefore, all the beverages are produced according to the same process inside the sachet. Yet depending on the nature of the beverage ingredient and the desired beverage, the beverage ingredient should be processed differently.
It is also known from the state of the art, for example as per WO 2011/024103, a flexible pouch or sachet for preparing a beverage such as coffee, comprising a space where a concentrated dose of the product is stored. The pouch comprises also a rigid part on one of the sides of the pouch, provided with an inlet through which water is inserted into the pouch, a tube element conveying the water towards the opposite part of the pouch, so that the mixing of the water and the ingredient is made, and an outlet through which the product is dispensed. During the preparation of the beverage the beverage outlet is positioned at the top of the pouch. Water is introduced through the inlet and through the tube element until it fills the pouch and overflows through the beverage outlet positioned at the top of the pouch too. Such a pouch is conceived for preparing a beverage by extraction of roast and ground coffee but not by dissolution of instant coffee or other soluble materials. For this reason the pouch comprises a filter at the outlet to prevent insoluble particles from being dispensed with the beverage. An inconvenient of such a pouch is that at the end of the preparation of the beverage and the introduction of water, beverage remains in the pouch which is an issue for the user who cannot properly remove the pouch from the beverage production machine. Besides, in this pouch, neither the water inlet nor the beverage outlet are closed by a membrane, which is not recommended in terms of hygiene and shelf life as it could present problems to the consumer. Moreover, all the products are processed in the same way, so no optimization of the product dispensed according to the ingredients provided is possible with this system.
Besides, in these known systems, the correct and complete dissolution of the product inside is not achieved in many cases, and some product can be remaining inside the sachet at the end of the preparation process. Moreover, the flow time required is usually high, which represents a strong disadvantage for the consumer. Another disadvantage of these known systems is that they do not allow the production of a proper foam in case this should be desired for certain beverages or food products prepared.
The present disclosure comes to provide a solution to the above-described needs, as it will be further explained. The present disclosure also aims at other objects and particularly at the solution of other problems as will appear in the rest of the present description.